Reply #12: Gore was clearly the biggest proponent for explaining global warming

[karynnj]

but as Al Gore himself said at the 2004 convention, no Senator had a better record than John Kerry.

Kerry has been involved in clean air, clean water, and anti- pollution initiatives since the early 1980s. He also worked on legislation that dealt with coastal erosion. Many things he recommended , that were rejected by commercial interests were things that were described as part of what needed to be done after Katrina. After seeing Al Gore's movie in my community last fall, we were led in a discussion of what could be done by a person trained by people connected to Gore's movie. One of the main things she spoke of was "carbon trading". The idea was that if a plant produced more carbon than allowed they needed to either change their processes, which was often non-economic or "buy" carbon credits from a plant exceeding the standard. This made the cost of building a "too clean" plant lower, making it more economic.

Carbon trading was based on the mechanism used in the Clean Air act, passed under GHWB, to reduce the components of acid rain. The impetus for including this in the Clean Air act was that the NE governors had used this method successfully to deal with acid rain. John Kerry, as lt Governor, had read about the problem of acid rain and had found that the problem had developed earlier in Europe which was industrialized earlier. With Dukakasis' approval, Kerry met with German and French environmental officials (one of whom was Kerry's first cousin) and learned of this method that they were using. He then came back and sold the idea to the New England governors.

Kerry did not devise the methodology - European economists and environmentalists did. He was key in getting it used in the US. This was a very major accomplishment and is a small part of the key to dealing with global warming.

Kerry actually spoke in Boston - as one of many speakers - on the first Earth Day in 1970 - before he spoke against the war. He was brought up by a mother who was concerned by environmental issues. This has been an issue he has been involved with all his life. It also is what brought him Teresa - they met when she was at the Rio conference (a precursor of Kyoto) as a non-governmental delegate because of her own environmental work.